Some  Moral  Demonstrations 
of  the  World-War 


PRESIDENT  HENRY  CHURCHILL  KING 


Some  Moral  Demonstrations 
of  the  World- War 


A  Baccalaureate  Sermon 
Delivered  at  Oberlin  College 
June  16,  1918 


By 


President  Henry  Churchill  King 


Press  of  the  News  Printing  Co. 
Oberlin,  Ohio 


SOME  MORAL  DEMONSTRATIONS  ; 
OF  THE  WORLD-WAR 


I  wish  to  speak  of  some  of  those 
inexorable  lessons,  which  God  seems 
intending  to  teach  the  whole  human 
race  in  this  war — lessons  to  be 
burned  into  the  very  consciousness  of 
the  men  of  this  generation. 

I.  The  Critical  Significance  of  the 
Times. 

And  first  of  all,  it  is  hardly  possi- 
ble to  exaggerate  the  critical  signifi- 
cance of  the  times  in  which  we  are 
living.  We  are  all  far  more  likely 
to  dream  through  this  crisis,  and  to 
wake  up  too  late  to  its  true  meaning. 
If  Mr.  Wells  could  say  early  in  the 
war, — "  This  is  the  end  and  the  be- 
ginning of  an  age.  This  is  something 
far  greater  than  the  French  Revolu- 
tion .  .  .  and  we  live  in  it — that 
statement  is  ten-fold  more  true  now 
than  when  he  wrote  it.  For  practi- 
cally the  whole  world  is  now  engulfed 
in  this  struggle,  and  there  is  not  a 
single  people  whose  interests  will  not 
be  vitally  affected  by  the  final  set- 
tlement after  the  war. 

The  greatness  of  the  crisis  is  to  be 
—3— 


seen  not  only  in  the  fact  that  on  the 
western  front  more  millions  of  men 
are  involved  than  have  ever  been  seen 
on  any  single  field  of  war,  and  in  a 
battle  on  which,  as  Lloyd  George 
says,  "The  fate  of  liberty  through- 
out the  world  may  depend;  "  but 
also  in  the  fact  that  in  this  war  the 
Allies  confront — it  is  to  be  soberly 
said — probably  the  most  threatening 
challenge  that  has  ever  teen  Drought 
to  Christian  civilization — a  threat  so 
dire,  so  insiduous,  so  penetrating, 
that  the  very  possibility  of  the  sur- 
vival of  democratic  and  Christian 
ideals  is  involved.  Kipling  states 
the  case  with  incisive  insight  when 
he  says  of  the  German, 

He  thought  out  the  hell  he 
wished  to  create;  he  built  it  up 
seriously  and  scientifically  with 
his  best  hands  and  brains;  he 
breathed  into  it  his  own  spirit 
that  it  might  grow  with  his 
needs;  and  at  the  hour  that  he 
judged  best  he  let  it  loose  on  the 
world  that  till  then  had  believed 
there  were  limits  beyond  which 
men  born  of  women  might  not  sin. 
.  .  .  Therefore  all  mankind  are 
against  Germany.  Therefore  all 
mankind  must  be  against  her  till 
she  learns  that  no  race  can  make 
its  way  or  break  its  way  outside 
the  borders  of  humanity. 

—4— 


So  great  is  the  crisis  in  which  the 
world  is  now  involved. 

And  the  critical  significance  of  our 
times  is  to  be  seen,  not  less,  in  the 
greatness  of  the  opportunity  now  of- 
fered to  the  moral  forces.  When 
President  Wilson  laid  before  Con- 
gress January  8,  1918,  the  fourteen 
points  of  his  "  program  of  the  world's 
peace,"  he  was  definitely  attempting 
as  a  practical  statesman  to  apply 
Christian  principles  to  international 
relations;  and  he  thereby,  with  the 
prestige  of  his  far-reaching  influence, 
gave  such  an  opportunity  to  the 
forces  which  are  working  for  the  bet- 
terment of  the  world  as  they  have 
never  had  before.  For  if  a  settlement 
can  be  reached  after  the  war  in  the 
line  of  this  program  of  President 
Wilson's,  it  will  mean  a  great  new 
era  in  human  history.  It  will  mean 
that  gains  will  have  been  made,  which 
would  be  in  some  true  sense  commen- 
surate with  the  immeasurable  sacri- 
fices for  which  this  war  has  called. 
The  fathers  and  mothers  of  the  al- 
lied nations  cannot  be,  and  ought  not 
to  be,  satisfied  with  less.  For  if 
there  are  not  to  be  great  construct- 
ive gains  included  in  the  final  war 


settlement,  even  a  decisive  military 
victory  over  the  Central  Powers 
would  still  be  a  virtual  defeat  of  the 
highest  aims  of  the  Allies.  No 
greater  question,  therefore,  confronts 
forward-looking  men  and  women  in 
this  hour  than  the  question,  whether 
the  educational,  moral,  and  religious 
forces  of  the  race  are  to  rise  to  the 
greatness  of  the  present  opportunity; 
or  whether  they  are  to  leave  after- 
the-war  forecasts  and  planning  and 
settlements  to  labor  and  socialist 
groups,  on  the  one  hand,  or  to  the 
reactionary  forces  which  want  no 
true  democracy,  on  the  other.  The 
greatness  of  the  present  crisis  is, 
therefore,  to  be  seen  in  the  immen- 
sity of  the  opportunity  opened  to  the 
moral  forces  of  the  world. 

The  very  fact  that  a  war  so  terri- 
ble and  so  desolating  was  allowed  to 
occur  at  all,  also  suggests  the  great- 
ness of  the  present  crisis.  What 
does  it  mean?  This  probably:  Under 
the  providence  of  God  the  war  was 
to  make  unmistakably  plain  Ger- 
many's selfish  and  unscrupulous  pur- 
poses of  world-domination,  before  she 
had  quite  throttled  Christian  civili- 
zation. We  are  able  to  see  now,  how 
menacing  was  the  danger  which 
threatened  the  ideals  of  the  race  be- 
—6— 


fore  the  war.  The  fact  was,  that 
Germany  was  on  the  high  road  to  a 
peaceful  accomplishment  of  her  con- 
scienceless purposes.  Through  her 
persistent  and  insidious  propaganda, 
through  her  unscrupulous  policy  of 
"  peaceful  penetration,"  through  her 
despicable  spy  system,  and  through 
her  treacherous  and  damnable  pol- 
icy of  double  citizenship,  Germany 
was  securing  at  a  rapid  pace  a  dom- 
ination, illustrated  even  in  Prance 
and  Italy,  which  can  now  be  seen 
to  have  been  most  threatening. 
For  all  the  highest  interests  of  civ- 
ilization, it  is  well  that  she  elect- 
ed to  fight.  Her  greed  over-reached 
itself;  and  she  therein  revealed  her 
purpose  of  world-domination,  and  her 
true  character  as  an  enemy  of  all 
mankind.  That  domination  the  hu- 
man race  is  now  forever  to  make  im- 
possible. So  great  is  the  present 
crisis. 

The  critical  significance  of  the 
times  is  also  revealed  in  the  length 
and  the  unexampled  extent  and  in- 
tensity of  this  war. 

The  war  has  several  times  seemed 
near  its  end.  Why  has  not  the  end 
come?  Why  instead  has  it  gone  on 
to  involve  the  world?  Under  the 
—7— 


government  of  a  righteous  God  what 
does  this  mean?  In  the  first  place, 
we  may  well  believe  that  the  war  was 
not  to  be  allowed  to  end,  until  the 
real  nature  and  character  of  Pan- 
Germanism,  now  so  completely  in  the 
saddle  in  the  Central  Powers, — the 
whole  German  purpose  and  ideal, — 
were  fully  laid  dare,  as  they  could 
not  be  in  a  few  months'  struggle.  For 
that  revealing,  the  whole  story  of  the 
terrible  desolation  of  Serbia,  Bel- 
gium, Armenia,  Russia,  Russian- 
Armenia,  and  Roumania  was  neces- 
sary— written  out  in  characters  so 
plain  that  no  man  could  fail  to  see 
them.  The  absolute  cynicism  of  Ger- 
many's aims  could  not  be  made  clear 
until  this  blackest  page  of  her  Rus- 
sian record  was  written. 

Twenty-five  years  ago,  in  spite  of 
factors  in  her  life  which  men  could 
not  approve,  and  partly  misled  by  the 
German  propaganda  itself,  thousands 
of  men  of  all  nations  were  giving 
Germany  an  admiration  and  an  affec- 
tion even  beyond  her  real  desert. 
Men  were  ready  to  recognize  in  her 
the  educational  and  scientific  and  mu- 
sical leader  of  the  world.  Is  It  a 
good  thing  for  her  that  in  this  war 
and  in  the  long  preparation  for  it, 
—8— 


she  has  put  her  admirers  and  lovers 
to  shame,  and  has  done  all  that  the 
most  fiendish  ingenuity  could  devise 
to  drive  out  of  their  hearts  every  last 
bit  of  admiration  and  love?  Well 
may  one,  whose  lines  show  that  he 
has  both  known  and  loved  his  Ger- 
many and  must  hope  that  she  will 
return  to  sanity  and  her  own  best, 
write  in  Punch  of  "A  Lost  Land," 

A   childhood  land  of  mountain 
ways, 

Where  earthy  gnomes  and  forest 
fays, 

Kind  foolish  giants,  gentle  bears, 
Sport  with  the  peasant  as  he  fares 
Affrighted    through    the  forest 
glades, 

And    lead    sweet    wistful  little 
maids 

Lost  in  the  woods,  forlorn,  alone, 
To  princely  lovers  and  a  throne. 


Dear  haunted  land  of  gorge  and 
glen, 

Ah  me!  the  dreams,  the  dreams 
of  men! 

A  learned  land  of  wise  old  books 
And  men  with  meditative  looks, 
Who  move  in  quaint  red-gabled 
towns 

And  sit  in  gravely-folded  gowns, 
Divining  in  deep-laden  speech 
The  world's  supreme  arcana — each 
A  homely  god  to  listening  Youth 

-9-  i 


Eager  to  tear  the  veil  of  Truth; 


Mild  votaries  of  book  and  pen — 
Alas,  the  dreams,  the  dreams  of 
men! 

A   music    land,    whose    life  is 
wrought 

In     movements     of  melodious 
thought; 

In    symphony,    great    wave  on 
wave — 

Or    fugue,    elusive,    swift  and 
grave; 

A  singing  land,  whose  lyric  rimee 
Float   on   the   air    like  village 
chimes; 

Music  and  verse — the  deepest  part 
Of   a    whole   nation's  thinking 
heart! 


O  land  of  Now,  oh  land  of  Then! 
Dear  God!  the  dreams,  the  dreams 
of  men! 

Slave  nation  in  a  land  of  hate, 
Where  are  the  things  that  made 

you  great? 
Child-hearted  once — oh,  deep  de- 
filed, 

Dare  you  look  now  upon  a  child? 
Your  lore — a  hideous  mask  wherein 
Self-worship  hides  its  monstrous 
sin:  — 

Music  and  verse,  divinely  wed — 
How  can  these  live  where  love  is 
dead? 


O  depths  beneath  sweet  human 
ken, 

—10— 


God  help  the  dreams,  the  dreams 
of  men! 

All  this  required  the  revelation  of 
the  whole  of  this  frightful  war. 

Nor,  under  the  providence  of  God, 
was  the  great  war  to  be  allowed  to 
end  until  America  could  come  in 
with  unified  conscience,  with  full 
realization  of  the  meaning  of  the 
crisis,  and  with  all  her  powers;  as 
having  now  and  forever  after  a  rec- 
ognized organic  share  and  responsi- 
bility in  the  world-life.  Her  tradi- 
tional policy  of  isolation  was  to  be 
finally  shattered,  and  a  world-life 
more  truly  unified  and  Christian 
made  possible. 

Nor  was  the  war  to  be  allowed  to 
end  until  all  the  liberal  powers  and 
forces  of  the  Allies  were  driven  into 
a  genuine  cooperation;  though  it  was 
to  take  the  full  weight  of  the  great 
German  offensive  on  the  west  to  in- 
sure one  Commander-in-Chief  for  the 
allied  forces.    The  Allies  have  paid 
an  enormous  price  again  and  again 
for   their   independent   action.  The 
world's  crisis  is  now  too  great  to 
permit  anything  but  the  closest  co- 
operation  among  all   the  forces  of 
righteousness    and    justice    in  the 
—11— 


earth.  And  we  may  thank  God  that 
this  has  now  become  plain. 

And  we  may  be  sure  that  another 
of  the  providential  reasons  for  the 
length,  extent,  and  intensity  of  this 
war  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
the  Allies  were  to  be  driven  to  'puri- 
fying their  own  aims;  to  purging  out 
of  their  ambitions  all  merely  selfish 
ends  and  all  democratic  inconsisten- 
cies. The  Russian  autocracy  was  to 
cease;  imperialistic  aims  to  be  aban- 
doned; unwarranted  Italian  ambitions 
to  be  reduced;  and  the  same  fiery  in- 
dignation to  be  manifested  against 
racial  and  social  wrongs  within  their 
own  borders,  as  against  such  wrongs 
among  other  belligerents.  As  surely 
as  the  Allies  are  no  believers  in  a 
tribal  God,  so  surely  must  they 
cleanse  their  own  hearts,  and  make 
sure  that  their  aims  are  the  just 
alms  of  a  righteous  God. 

We  may  be  sure,  too,  that  under 
the  providence  of  God  this  war  was 
allowed  to  engulf  the  world,  in  order 
that  the  great  moral  issues  involved 
might  be  made  clear  to  all  men,  and 
a  significant  world-decision  reached, 
by  which  the  whole  world,  rather 
than  any  small  section  of  it,  might 
profit.  It  was  to  be  made  forever 
—12— 


clear  to  the  whole  race  that  moral 
obligations  are  binding  upon  nations 
as  well  as  upon  individuals;  that  men 
must  choose  between  the  ideal  of  a 
true  brotherhood  of  self-respecting 
and  mutually-respecting  nations  on 
the  one  hand,  and  domination  by  an 
unscrupulous  autocracy  on  the  other, 
— an  autocracy  already  planning  for 
another  war  more  terrible  than  this. 
For  it  has  come  to  be  clear  that  the 
war  in  which  we  are  now  engaged  is 
no  ordinary  war  of  a  mere  clash  of 
selfish  interests  of  certain  nations. 
All  mankind  are  to  be  forced  to 
choose  between  democracy  and  au- 
tocracy. They  are  to  be  driven  to 
see  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
divine  rights  of  kings  or  aristocra- 
cies; that  there  are  by  right  no  priv- 
ileged classes  through  inheritance  or 
enactment;  that  nobody  is  good 
enough  for  such  domination  as  Ger- 
many seeks,  and  if  he  were  good 
enough  he  would  not  want  the  domi- 
nation. This  war,  thus,  men  are 
coming  to  see,  is  an  inevitable  collis- 
ion between  two  absolutely  contra- 
dictory systems,  between  two  irrecon- 
cilable ideals.  And  the  war  must  be 
finally  so  settled,  that  such  a  world- 

—13— 


engulfing  crime  as  this  shall  not  be 
possible  again. 

God  has  intended,  thus,  that  this 
generation  should  not  repeat  the  fail- 
ure of  the  French  Revolution,  should 
not  stop  short  of  great  constructive 
results,  in  mere  negative  overturn- 
ing. We  are  not  to  be  allowed  to 
evade,  this  time,  the  demands  of  a 
radical  democracy.  We  are  not  to  be 
allowed  to  heal  lightly  the  hurt  of 
the  peoples.  In  fact,  as  Mr.  Wells 
says,  a  league  of  nations  has  become 
"a  plain  necessity": 

It  becomes  more  and  more  plain- 
ly a  choice  between  the  League  of 
Free  Nations  and  famished  men 
looting  in  search  of  non-existent 
food  amidst  the  burning  ruins  of 
our  world. 

Now  in  such  a  war  and  facing  a 
crisis  like  this,  we  may  be  sure  that 
no  small  motives  will  avail  to  keep 
our  nerve  unshaken,  our  morale  firm 
to  the  end — into  that  last  quarter  of 
an  hour  of  which  the  French  Pre- 
mier has  spoken.  Petty  self-interest 
will  not  suffice.  Hate  and  revenge 
will  come  far  short.  Rather,  if  in 
this  struggle  we  are  to  endure  to  the 
end,  we  shall  need  all  the  undergird- 
ing  of  the  deepest  moral  convictions 
—14— 


and  of  the  firmest  religious  faith. 
For  if  a  thinking  man  is  to  be  a 
fighting  man,  he  needs  a  great  cause 
for  which  to  fight,  and  such  a  cause, 
purified  and  glorified,  the  Allies  have 
today. 

II.  The  Plasticity  of  the  Present 
World  Forces. 

Now  in  this  crisis  in  the  world's 
history,  there  is  also  being  daily 
demonstrated  before  the  eyes  of  men 
the  plasticity  of  the  present  world 
forces — a  plasticity  that  cannot  long 
continue,  and  of  which  every  advan- 
tage must  be  taken  now  by  the  forces 
of  righteousness,  if  the  largest  re- 
sults are  to  come  out  of  this  war.  As 
William  Harbutt  Dawson  writes,  "We 
are  living  at  a  time  when  days  and 
weeks  have  the  fulness  and  signifi- 
cance of  years  and  decades."  If  we 
are  blind  to  this,  we  shall  sacrifice 
great  gains  for  the  race  otherwise 
easily  possible. 

My  chief  fear  as  to  the  outcome  of 
this  war  is,  that  when  peace  comes, 
whether  soon  or  late,  it  will  come 
suddenly;  and  we  shall  all  be  so 
war-weary,  so  sick  and  disgusted 
with  the  whole  strife  and  its  conse- 
quences, so  anxious  to  get  back  to 
—15— 


any  kind  of  a  patched-up  peace,  that 
we  shall  nervelessly  let  slip  out  of 
our  hands  perhaps  the  greatest  sin- 
gle opportunity  that  the  race  has 
ever  had  for  a  great  forward  step.  We 
may  not  forget  that  there  are  many 
forces  even  within  the  allied  nations 
that  are  thoroughly  reactionary,  that 
desire  no  true  democracy,  and  that 
want  to  see  unjust  privileges  perpet- 
uated. Their  desires  will  be  fulfilled, 
unless  men  and  women  of  moral  con- 
victions and  ideals  are  determined 
now,  not  later,  by  and  through  the 
war  and  not  simply  after  it,  to  mold 
these  plastic  forces  for  great  gains 
for  the  race.  There  is  such  a  thing 
as  winning  a  war  and  losing  all  its 
best  possible  fruits.  As  I  have  else- 
where quoted  Brailsford  as  saying: 

The  hope  of  the  world  is  in  our 
grasp.  At  the  settlement  of  this 
war  we  may  realize  it.  If  that  mo- 
ment escapes  us,  we  and  our  chil- 
dren may  expiate  our  cowardice 
and  our  indecision  in  an  epoch 
which  will  turn  to  revolution  as 
a  mild  alternative  to  war. 
III.    The  World's  Need  of  Christian 

Comfort. 

Once  more  there  is  being  brought 
home  to  the   consciousness  of  men 
the  heavy  load  of  human  sorrow  and 
—16— 


the  world's  unspeakable  need  of 
Christian  comfort.  It  is  Christian- 
ity's greatest  opportunity.  For  no 
religion  can  speak  so  deeply  to  the 
suffering  souls  of  men.  The  earth 
has  never  known  so  many  anguish- 
torn  hearts.  We  have  only  begun  to 
understand  it  here  in  America;  but 
we,  too,  are  to  be  baptized  into  the 
spirit  of  sacrifice,  and  to  drink  the 
cup  of  suffering.  If  we  are  to  come 
through  it  at  all  with  sanity  and 
faith  and  hope  and  love,  we  shall 
need  all  the  great  motives  of  the 
Christian  faith. 

Thousands  of  men  at  the  front, 
and  thousands  of  those  who  love  them 
at  home,  are  facing  once  again,  as 
no  academic  problem  but  as  a  mat- 
ter of  life  and  death,  the  question  of 
immortality.  Are  those,  who  are  sac- 
rificing their  lives  for  the  emancipa- 
tion of  men,  to  have  no  personal 
share  in  the  new  age  that  is  to  come? 
Does  death  end  all?  And  to  this  cry 
of  the  human  heart  for  the  immortal 
life,  we  shall  have  no  sufficient  an- 
swer except  as  we  speak  out  of  that 
atmosphere  of  the  eternal  which  is 
the  very  air  of  Christ. 

And  as  certainly  as  men  need  the 
assurance  of  immortality,  they  need 

—17— 


even  more  the  sure  sense  of  living 
relation  to  a  living  God — a  God  who 
has  vitally  to  do  with  his  children, 
who  lives  and  works  and  loves  and 
suffers  in  them,  and  is  the  infinite 
Father  ever  at  hand  and  never  a  God 
afar  off.  Will  the  Christian  church 
greatly  meet  this  deepest  need  of 
men? 

Nor  can  men  be  satisfied  today,  as 
they  fight  to  preserve  the  very  foun- 
dations of  civilization,  without  the 
assurance  of  the  increasing  coming 
of  the  kingdom  of  God  on  earth. 
Millions  of  men  in  all  the  belligerent 
armies  are  fighting  with  the  vivid 
hope  and  the  grim  determination 
that  a  war  like  this  shall  not  occur 
again;  that  their  children  shall  be 
spared  the  facing  of  such  an  inferno. 
They  are  determined  that  the  great 
result  of  the  war  shall  be  the  bring- 
ing on  of  a  new  epoch  for  the  race, 
a  new  civilization  of  brotherly  men. 
Is  the  church  of  Christ  mightily  to 
back  this  determination?  Surely 
those  who  name  themselves  after  the 
name  of  Christ  cannot  fail  to  put  up 
to  God  the  prayer 

They  who  shall  give  for  Thee 

Lover  and  son, 
Show  them  Thy  world  set  free, 

Thy  battles  done! 
—18— 


Lord  God  we  lift  to  Thee 

A  world  in  pain, 
Look  down  and  let  it  be 

Made  whole  again! 

IV.  A  Growing  Sense  of  the  In- 
tangible Values. 

In  close  harmony  with  these  con- 
victions of  the  Christian  faith,  is  the 
growing  sense  of  the  intangible  val- 
ues which  this  world-war  is  steadily 
disclosing.  It  should  mean  much  to 
all  believers  in  the  ideal  that  more 
millions  of  men  than  ever  before 
have  come  to  see  that  force  and  ma- 
chinery and  organization  and  wealth 
and  science,  even,  are  not  enough; 
that  a  man  or  a  nation  may  have  all 
these  and  still  have  no  life  worth 
living.  For  something  like  three- 
fourths  of  the  population  of  the  world 
are  now  knit  up  in  some  fashion  with 
the  cause  of  the  Allies, — not  for  ter- 
ritorial gains,  not  for  commercial  ag- 
grandisement, not  for  purposes  of 
political  domination,  but  because  they 
have  come  to  see  as  never  before  that 
all  possible  material  gains  without 
essential  liberty  do  but  furnish  forth 
a  barren  life.  It  has  become  finally 
clear  to  them  that  no  material  gains 
can  ever  make  good  the  heritage  of 
free  men:  freedom  of  worship,  free- 
—19— 


dom  of  thought,  freedom  of  investi- 
gation; political,  economic,  social 
freedom;  the  emancipation  of  all  the 
powers  of  men.  They  have  awak- 
ened, thus,  to  the  meaning  of  the  in- 
tangible values;  they  have  caught 
the  vision  of  the  things  that  though 
they  be  not  seen  are  yet  eternal — the 
everlasting  values  of  faith,  of  hope, 
of  love.  Does  it  mean  nothing  to 
you  that  this  war,  in  spite  of  all  its 
evils,  has  brought  this  growing  sense 
of  intangible  values? 

V.  Unparallelled  Cooperation  of 
the  Forces  of  Righteousness. 

I  am  no  panegyrist  of  war,  and  I 
am  bearing  in  mind  its  fearful  train 
of  evil;  but  one  may  rejoice  never- 
theless that,  under  the  pressure  of 
a  war  like  this,  the  peoples  who  are 
really  seeking  a  free  society  of  self- 
respecting  and  mutually-respecting 
nations,  are  being  driven  also  to 
such  far-reaching  cooperation  and 
companionship  in  high  aims  as  the 
world  has  never  before  seen.  The 
resources  of  money,  of  food,  of  ship- 
ping, of  man-power  of  three-fourths 
of  the  world  are  pooled  to  establish 
the  great  aims  of  the  Allies.  What  a 
marvelous  thing  it  is,  that  we  may 
sit  here  surrounded  by  the  flags  of 
—20— 


twenty-one  allies!  Something  like  a 
unified  Council  of  all  these  peoples 
has  been  made  possible — an  actual 
and  potent  internationalism,  a  super- 
nationalism,  indeed,  that  holds  the 
one  great  promise  for  the  world's  fu- 
ture peace  and  progress.  Coopera- 
tion on  such  a  scale  and  for  such 
ends  may  well  send  a  thrill  through 
any  man  who  can  think.  For  here 
is  already  actualized  a  kind  of  parlia- 
ment of  man,  a  great  world  unity  of 
the  free  nations,  who  seek  the  tri- 
umph of  freedom,  of  justice  and  of 
peace  for  all  the  peoples  of  the  entire 
world.  If  cooperation  like  this  for 
great  unselfish  aims  may  be  secured 
in  time  of  war,  surely  we  need  not 
be  without  hope  of  the  establishment 
of  a  permanent  league  of  the  nations 
after  the  war.  For  without  such  a 
league  the  very  existence  of  civiliza- 
tion will  be  jeopardized. 

VI.    New  Faith  in  Common  Men. 

In  speaking  to  you  a  year  ago,  I 
asked  you  then  to  think  of  the  new 
faith  that  had  arisen  in  common  men. 
The  year  that  has  intervened  has 
only  strengthened  and  deepened  that 
faith.  Common  men  of  all  the  nations 
have  proved  themselves  capable  of 
—21— 


an  endurance  we  had  hardly  thought 
possible  to  human  flesh,  and  of  a  he- 
roism unsurpassed  in  the  history  of 
the  world.  Wells  counts  this  one  of 
the  characteristic  things  of  this  war: 

It  is  the  peculiarity  of  this  war 
— it  is  the  most  reassuring  evi- 
dence that  a  great  increase  in  gen- 
eral ability  and  critical  ability 
has  been  going  on  throughout  the 
last  century — that  no  isolated 
great  personages  have  emerged. 
Never  has  there  been  so  much  abil- 
ity, invention,  inspiration,  leader- 
ship; but  the  very  abundance  of 
good  qualities  has  prevented  our 
focusing  upon  those  of  any  one  in- 
dividual. ...  It  is  not  that  the  war 
has  failed  to  produce  heroes  so 
much  as  that  it  has  produced  he- 
roism in  a  torrent.  The  great 
man  of  this  war  is  the  common 
man.  It  becomes  ridiculous  to 
pick  out  particular  names.  The 
acts  of  the  small  men  in  this  war 
dwarf  all  the  pretensions  of  the 
great  man.  Imperatively  these 
multitudinous  heroes  forbid  the 
setting  up  of  effigies.  When  I 
was  a  young  man  I  imitated  Swift 
and  posed  for  cynicism;  I  will 
confess  that  now,  at  fifty  and 
greatly  helped  by  this  war,  I  have 
fallen  in  love  with  mankind. 
And  this  courage  of  the  common 
man  is  ground,  as  William  Allen 
White  sees,  for  a  great  new  faith  in 
democracy: 

—22— 


That  Courage — that  thing  which 
the  Germans  thought  was  their 
special  gift  from  Heaven,  bred  of 
military  discipline,  rising  out  of 
German  Kultur — we  know  now 
is  the  commonest  heritage  of  men. 
It  is  the  divine  fire  burning  in 
the  soul  of  us  that  proves  the 
case  for  democracy.  For  at  base 
and  underneath  we  are  all  equals. 
In  crises  the  rich  man,  the  poor 
man,  the  thief,  the  harlot,  the 
preacher,  the  teacher,  the  laborer, 
the  ignorant,  the  wise,  all  go  to 
death  for  something  that  defies 
death,  something  immortal  in  the 
human  spirit.  Those  truck  driv- 
ers, those  mule  whackers,  those 
common  soldiers,  that  doctor, 
th^se  college  men  on  the  ambu- 
lance, are  brothers  tonight  in  the 
democracy  of  courage.  Upon  that 
democracy  is  the  hope  of  the  race, 
for  it  bespeaks  a  wider  and 
deeper  kinship  of  men. 

The  passionate  tribute  which  one 
of  our  American  poets  has  paid  to 
the  spirit  of  France,  is  typical  of  this 
new  faith  in  the  common  men  of  all 
the  nations.  For  there  has  been  a 
new  birth  for  nations,  like  Serbia  and 
Belgium  and  France,  as  well  as  for 
individuals  in  this  great  war.  Von 
Hindenburg  said  sneeringly  of 
France,  "  France  is  dying,"  and  the 
poet  catches  up  this  word: 
—23— 


If  France  is  dying,  she  dies  as 
day 

In   the   splendor   of   noon,  sun- 

aureoled. 
If  France  is  dying,  then  youth  is 

gray 

And  steel   is  soft  and  flame  is 
cold. 

France  cannot  die!  France  can- 
not die! 

If  France  is  dying,  she  dies  as 
love 

When  a  mother  dreams  of  her 

child-to-be. 
If   France   is   dying,    then  God 

above 

Died    with    His    Son    upon  the 
Tree. 

France  cannot  die!  France  can- 
not  die! 

If  France  is  dying,  true  manhood 
dies, 

Freedom  and  justice,  all  golden 
things. 

If  France  is  dying,  then  life  were 
wise 

To    borrow    of   death    such  im- 
mortal wings. 
France  cannot  die!  France  can- 
not die! 

VII.  The  Prevalence  of  the  Sacri- 
ficial Spirit. 

And  once  more  this  war  has  dem- 
onstrated afresh  and  on  an  unexam- 
pled scale  the  capacity  of  men  for 
sacrifice.  The  massive  heroism  of 
—24— 


the  common  men  of  all  the  nations 
has  made  this  fact  certain. 

More  millions  of  men  than  ever  be- 
fore in  the  history  of  the  world  have 
thrown  themselves  unflinchingly  into 
the  support  of  a  great  unselfish 
cause,  ready  for  whatever  sacrifice 
that  might  involve.  This  very  spirit 
of  sacrifice  has  given  to  them  all  a 
new  sense  of  the  great  values  for 
which  they  fight,  and  a  new  grip  upon 
them.  Men  are  seeing  things  in  bet- 
ter proportion;  the  great  values  are 
looming  up  as  really  great,  and  the 
relative  goods  are  forced  back  into 
their  relative  places.  So  that  it  is 
the  "  glory  of  the  trenches,"  as  Con- 
ningsby  Dawson  says,  that  has  eman- 
cipated men  from  selfishness  and 
from  the  domination  of  petty  aims 
and  fears: 

There's  one  person  I've  missed 
since  my  return  to  New  York. 
I've  caught  glimpses  of  him  dis- 
appearing around  corners,  but 
he  dodges.  I  think  he's  a  bit 
ashamed  to  meet  me.  That  per- 
son is  my  old  civilian  self.  What 
a  full-blown  egoist  he  used  to  be! 
How  full  of  golden  plans  for  his 
own  advancement!  How  terrified 
of  failure,  of  disease,  of  money 
losses,  of  death — of  all  the  tem- 
porary, external,  non-essential 
—25— 


things  that  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  spirit!  War  is  in  itself 
damnable — a  profligate  misuse  of 
the  accumulated  brainstuff  of 
centuries.  Nevertheless,  there's 
many  a  man  who  has  no  love  of 
war,  who  previous  to  the  war  had 
cramped  his  soul  with  littleness 
and  was  chased  by  the  bayonet  of 
duty  into  the  blood-stained  large- 
ness of  the  trenches,  who  has 
learned  to  say,  "  Thank  God  for 
this  war!  "  He  thanks  God  not  be- 
cause of  the  carnage,  but  because 
when  the  winepress  of  new  ideals 
was  being  trodden  he  was  born  in 
an  age  when  he  could  do  his 
share. 

And  some  such  emancipation  as 
has  come  to  the  men  at  the  front 
should  come  in  like  manner  to  those 
at  home,  who  bear  them  on  their 
hearts  in  love  and  prayer  and  make 
common  cause  with  them.  How  in- 
evitably the  home  life,  too,  must  be 
exalted  by  the  sacrifices  of  this  war 
is  voiced  by  Miss  Rittenhouse  in  her 
poem,  "  I  Have  no  Lover  on  the  Bat- 
tle-field." 

I  have  no  lover  on  the  battle-field, 
I  do  not  go  with  sickening  fear 
at  heart, 
And   when   the   crier   calls  the 
latest  horror 
I  do  not  start. 
I  have  no  lover  on  the  battle-field, 
—26— 


I  am  exempt  from  terror  of  the 
night, 

I  can  lie  down,  serene  and  disre- 
garding, 
Until  the  light. 

But  on  the  battle-field  had  I  a 
lover, 

How  life  would  purge  itself  of 
petty  pain, 
And  what  would  matter  all  the 
petty  losses, 
The  petty  gain? 
I  should  be  one  with  those  who 
suffer  greatly, 
With  pain  all  pain  above, 
And  I  should  know  then,  beyond 
peradventure, 
The  heart  of  Love! 

But  the  glory  of  the  spirit  of  sacri- 
fice is  not  merely  that  it  emancipates 
and  exalts  the  individual  who  feels 
it,  but  that  it  is  contagious  and 
spreads  from  soul  to  soul,  and  so  be- 
comes truly  redemptive  for  other 
men  also.  Mr.  J.  J.  Chapman  has  no 
doubt  his  own  brilliant  son  in 
thought,  who  died  earlier  in  the  war, 
when  he  writes: 

The  young  men,  as  of  old,  shine 
as  the  natural  heroes  of  the  race. 
Their  readiness  to  die  restores 
our  faith  in  human  nature.  It  re- 
minds us  that  the  sacrificial  part 
is  what  counts  in  the  spread  of 
truth.  This  much  we  know,  and 
—27— 


we  know  little  else,  about  moral- 
ity and  religion.  To  count  the 
cost  and  dwell  upon  the  life  and 
property  sacrificed  in  heroic  ac- 
tion is  to  doubt  the  value  of 
truth.  To  what  better  use  could 
these  young  heroes  and  all  this 
amassed  wealth  have  been  put? 
It  was  for  this  that  they  existed. 
As  for  the  pain  involved  in  their 
engulfing,  as  for  the  agony  of  the 
experience,  this  is  a  part  of  the 
regeneration.  People  seem  to  de- 
sire the  power  of  Christ,  and  the 
benevolence  of  Christ,  without 
the  Passion.  The  thing  can  not 
be  done;  and  nothing  but  an  age 
of  materialism  could  have  so 
softened  the  fiber  of  moralists  as 
to  lead  men  to  think  it  possible. 

The  spirit  of  sacrifice  not  only  in- 
volves, thus,  the  uplift  of  high  com- 
panionship in  the  fulfilment  of  great 
aims,  but  its  unwonted  prevalence 
means  also  that  more  millions  of 
men  than  ever  before  in  the  history 
of  the  world  have  found  in  their  own 
sacrificial  experience  the  key  to 
the  understanding  of  the  deepest 
message  of  religion,  of  Christianity, 
of  Christ's  own  death — the  mes- 
sage of  sacrifice.  Men  have  come  to 
see  in  some  half-blind  fashion,  that 
they  can  in  a  true  sense  do  what 
Hinton  long  ago  pointed  out — make 
—28— 


all  their  pains  "  identify  themselves 
in  meaning  and  end  with  the  suffer- 
ing of  Christ."  For  when  one  turns 
all  his  pains  into  a  willing  sacrifice 
to  God  and  to  men,  he  makes  the  sac- 
rifice itself,  as  one  has  said,  "an  in- 
strument of  joy."  For  love  rejoices 
in  sacrifices  for  love's  sake.  Once 
more,  then,  in  this  sacrificial  exper- 
ience which  is  sweeping  over  the 
world,  God  is  saying  to  men:  "Be- 
loved, think  it  not  strange  concern- 
ing the  fiery  trial  among  you,  which 
cometh  upon  you  to  prove  you,  as 
though  a  strange  thing  happened 
unto  you;  but  inasmuch  as  ye  are 
partakers  of  Christ's  sufferings,  re- 
joice; that  at  the  revelation  of  his 
glory  also  ye  may  rejoice  with  ex- 
ceeding joy."  One  does  not  wonder 
that  one  of  the  English  Chaplains 
was  able  to  say  that  the  favorite 
hymn  of  the  London  regiments,  at 
the  great  battle  of  the  Somme,  was 
Watts'  old  Good  Friday  hymn: 

When    I    survey    the  wondrous 
cross 

On  which  the  Prince  of  Glory 
died, 

My  richest  gain  I  count  but  loss, 
And  pour  contempt  on  all  my 
pride. 


—29— 


VIII.  The  Promise  of  a  New  Civ- 
ilization. 

But  one  could  not  keep  his  faith  in 
God  and  the  world  at  all,  if  he  be- 
lieved that  these  sacrifices  were  to 
be  all  in  vain,  and  were  not  the  prom- 
ise and  prophecy  of  a  better  age,  of 
a  new  civilization  of  brotherly  men. 
With  steadily  increasing  assurance, 
if  I  read  the  signs  aright,  men  of 
faith  and  vision  are  forecasting  a 
new  world,  a  great  new  epoch  for 
humanity,  in  which  the  interests  of 
the  common  man  shall  be  guarded  as 
they  have  never  been  before  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  As  another  has 
said,  "  I  believe  that  historians  will 
look  back  upon  this  epoch  as  the 
most  dynamic  epoch  in  the  world; 
the  time  when  the  greatest  social, 
political,  industrial,  and  spiritual 
changes  of  men  were  made."  We  are 
all  to  be  soldiers  of  this  great  change. 
Out  of  the  faith,  in  life  and  death,  of 
one  such  soldier  of  the  great  change 
were  born  these  lines: 

Ye  that  have  faith  to  look  with 
fearless  eyes 
Beyond  the  tragedy  of  a  world 
at  strife 

And  know  that  out  of  death  and 
night  shall  rise 
The  dawn  of  ampler  life, 
 30— 


Rejoice  whatever  anguish  rend 
the  heart, 
That  God  has  given  you  a  price- 
less dower, 
To  live  in  these  great  times  and 
have  your  part 
In  Freedom's  crowning  hour. 

That  ye  may  tell  your  sons  who 
see  the  light 
High  in  the  heavens — their  her- 
itage to  take — 
"I  saw  the  powers  of  Darkness 
put  to  flight 
I  saw  the  morning  break." 

Members  of  the  Graduating  Class: 

You  come  to  the  end  of  your  college 
course  in  unexampled  days  of  world- 
crisis,  when  the  world-forces  are  plas- 
tic to  men's  molding  as  never  be- 
fore, and  when  men  deeply  need  the 
comfort  which  only  a  great  faith  can 
give.  Face  to  face  with  such  a  crisis, 
such  an  opportunity,  such  a  need, 
you  will  gird  yourselves  about  with 
the  new  convictions  and  hopes  which 
have  shone  through  the  clouds  of 
these  difficult  days:  the  growing 
sense  of  the  intangible  values,  the 
unparallelled  cooperation  of  the 
forces  of  righteousness,  the  new  faith 
in  common  men  and  nations,  the 
wide  prevalence  of  the  sacrificial 
spirit — the  holiest  thing  in  man — and 
—31— 


the  promise  of  a  new  civilization.  Be 
sure,  with  John  Oxenham: 

The  future  lies 

With  those  whose  eyes 

Are  wide  to  the  necessities, 

And  wider  still 

With  fervent  will, 

To  all  the  possibilities. 

Times  big  with  fate 

Our  wills  await, 

If  we  be  ripe  to  occupy; 

If  we  be  bold 

To  seize  and  hold 

This  new-born  soul  of  liberty. 

And  every  man 
Not  only  can, 

But  must  the  great  occasion  seize. 
Never  again 
Will  he  attain 

Such  wondrous  opportunities. 

Be  strong!  Be  true! 
Claim  your  soul's  due! 
Let  no  man  rob  you  of  the  prize! 
The  goal  is  near, 
The  way  is  clear, 
Who  falters  now  shames  God,  and 
dies. 

"  Stir  into  flame  the  gift  of  God 
which  is  in  thee." 

"  Take  thy  part  in  suffering  hard- 
ship, as  a  good  soldier  of  Christ 
Jesus." 


—32— 


